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Young engineers making their contribution to change

The end of the fall semester is always a hectic period with finals and the winter recess, but we want to get you connected with the most recent activity going on with EWB. Every November we look forward to the Northeast Region Conference hosted for all EWB chapters in the New England area. This year it was our privilege to have a group of six devoted attend the conference. They learned a lot of information from distinguished speakers and had the opportunity to interact with neighboring chapters. The students had only great things to say about their experiences, so we want to tell you about it also!

Our EWB-BU Team!

As we continue our partnership with the Naluja community in Zambia, the presentations helped understand the essential features needed to build an optimal relationship. Such a relation is vital in finding the core issues in a community and proposing long-term solutions that will fit the needs of the people. We must be knowledgeable of the social and cultural identity of our community; one of the ways we’re doing this is through close contact and open communication. Also, they emphasized the notion of embracing every step of a project as a special bond is formed between the EWB chapter and community. Furthermore, a synchronous relationship should build as teams of students will be mentored and in turn educate the people in communities on the issues and proposed solutions.

Another takeaway from the conference were the many professional speakers who talked about specific projects they were working on with their respective chapters. This was very informative and helpful to us as it provided a breadth of extra information for us to consider as we begin to model and prototype our own projects. For example, when implementing a water filtration system, an important attribute to consider is the presence of natural sources, such as hills, that would ease accessibility and movement of water. Also, community choice is vital in ensuring that the engineering solutions we are proposing will satisfy their needs.

One of many interesting lectures

We hope that this will give you some insight on the exciting relationship between EWB-BU and our partner community in Zambia. We are looking forward to using all of this information to improve our projects and relation with our partners, as we seek to make a change!